X (formerly Twitter) was “notoriously toxic” with “far more negativity” than other social media networks and a “risk to our brand”, an internal TVNZ document showed ahead of the state broadcaster quitting the platform late last year.
The “resource-intensive moderation” required for posts published to X was in part why TVNZ proposed discontinuing its use of the platform, which was acquired by SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk in 2022. Musk is also now a senior adviser to US President Donald Trump.
The Herald has obtained communications under the Official Information Act showing TVNZ and its 1News department’s rationale for leaving the platform in December last year. Their accounts remain on the site, but a message says the pages are not active or moderated.
A proposal document, shared between senior staff late last year, was withheld for several reasons, including that its release may prejudice or disadvantage TVNZ’s commercial activities, to maintain legal privilege, and to allow for the free and frank expression of opinions by the broadcaster’s employees.
However, several excerpts were provided to the Herald.
An executive summary showed it was recommended TVNZ’s account be discontinued “due to low reach & engagement, and resource-intensive moderation requirements”. That would allow the reallocation of resources to “more effective social media platforms”.
The document said TVNZ’s account, launched in 2009, had just 25,000 followers compared to 570,000 on TikTok, which it only launched in 2022. In the year prior, it had only posted or shared content about 200 times. These were primarily posts about sports coverage and they only reached about 500-5000 accounts “with very minimal engagement”.
“X’s user base in New Zealand is significantly smaller than other social media platforms. Only 7% of New Zealanders report using X daily, compared to 59% Facebook, 28% Instagram,” the document said.
“X is notoriously toxic when it comes to trolls and hateful comments, with far more negativity than we see across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Comments are almost always unrelated to the shows being promoted. We’re often tagged by accounts sharing extreme political views and OIA requests can be easily missed in the noise. This presents risk to our brand, image, corporate reputation, and the wellbeing of our people.”
A further excerpt said the time and effort needs to moderate comments “could be redirected to platforms better suited to visual/entertainment centric content, with higher market penetration, and with more likelihood to contribute to our digital audience growth ambitions”.
Emails show that while senior staff were discussing in November the intention to discontinue the TVNZ account, initially it appears the plan was for “no change to News”, meaning the separate 1News account.
However, an email from the general manager of digital news and content on December 3 said they were planning to stop posting on X on the 1News account later that month.
“We have lost both of our remaining social media producers in this restructure, we are garnering very little traffic from X, and the ongoing issues with X as a platform seem to be worsening.”
They wanted to discontinue use of the account on December 20.
“I think the best plan is to simply stop posting and make no statement or post about it.”
TVNZ’s head of data-driven marketing replied the next day saying, “funnily enough we have just firmed up plans to do exactly the same”.
They suggested aligning the approach between the TVNZ account and the 1News account to both discontinue use on December 20 and to remove mentions of the X accounts from their websites.
On December 5, the general manager of digital news and content sent another email – it’s unclear to whom – saying they would like to stop using X “because a very small percentage of NZers” are on it.
“It delivers a very small amount of traffic to our platforms, it has become an increasingly toxic place, and there are very limited options for moderating comments, and our remaining social media producer roles have been disestablished.”
The manager said the account would be retained “so that no one else can take the name”, but they’d highlight in the account’s biography section that “it’s an inactive account as occasionally people try to OIA via @ing on Twitter”.
Further emails show similar discussions about the intention not to actively monitor the account and direct people to another contact point. The account’s biographies mention that any communications must be sent via its corporate site.
Staff messages on December 20, when the accounts ceased to be used, showed one employee saying it had been “X-ecuted” with a smile emoji. Someone “laugh” reacted to that.
TVNZ went through significant changes last year, including the proposal to cut a large number of roles. As the Herald’s Media Insider previously reported, that included roles within the digital news and content team, including the social media producer role.
X has come under criticism for not doing enough to address hateful content on the platform. A study published in the PLOS One journal this month found an “increase in hate speech just before Musk bought X persisted until at least May of 2023”.
It said the weekly rate of hate speech was “approximately 50% higher than the months preceding his purchase, although this increase cannot be directly attributed to any policy at X”.
Musk said following his purchase that the company’s “strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged”.
“In fact, we have actually seen hateful speech at times this week decline *below* our prior norms, contrary to what you may read in the press,” he posted on the site.
X has a “hateful conduct” policy, informing users they cannot “directly attack” others based on the likes of race, sexual orientation, gender or religion.
“X’s mission is to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information, and to express their opinions and beliefs without barriers. Free expression is a human right – we believe that everyone has a voice, and the right to use it. Our role is to serve the public conversation, which requires representation of a diverse range of perspectives.”
Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub Press Gallery office.
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